What is God responsible for?

[Willum]

Many things were done in God's name:
But what is he responsible for?

When the Catholic Nazi Germany attempts a genocide, a man is blamed.
When Hebrews commit genocide on the Canaan, it is his will.

We have plagues, on Catholic countries, for example. The Dark Ages were committed in Yahweh's name. Were they?

Why would Yahweh plunge the civilization of Rome, with health, farming and sanitation, back into the primitive squalor of ancient Jerusalem, if so?

If not, why did he not stop such a terror? It seems to be in His purview.

How does one determine if an act is done in God's will, or men's will?
Does the Bible tell us?

Understanding that free will is a constraint - we can also understand that mob's and large numbers of people lose free will, does this fall into God's purview, then?

In short, how does one know what God is responsible for;
Any group decision?
A decision influenced by prayer?

The position is that presented by Romans 13:

Obey the rulers who have authority over you. Only God can give authority to anyone, and he puts these rulers in their places of power. 2 People who oppose the authorities are opposing what God has done, and they will be punished. 3 Rulers are a threat to evil people, not to good people. There is no need to be afraid of the authorities. Just do right, and they will praise you for it. 4 After all, they are Gods servants, and it is their duty to help you.

The position of the OP is: those atrocities committed by governments, God's will, and he is responsible for them.

[bluethread]

God is responsible for about 95% of what is done n his name. God's passion is completed in the sympathy of men. God and Man together do it.

OK, what now? Who is going to bring a deity to account and how?

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 148 by marco]

Why do you find psychology dubious, especially on the issue of the subconscious mind? I think anyone who tries to tune it better to himself or herself will easily recognize that our conscious awareness is haunted by a dim, penumbral realm of experience, that feeling you have of something always going on at the back of your head, something massive, something, right below the frontier where the precision of consciousness fails.

The Bible is certainly not the only avenue of communication we have with God. However, such books can definitely help make conscious our unconscious avenues of experience. They also help us better identify with the experiences of our ancestors, which is part of our quest for depth and breadth of experience, that is, feeling more deeply into ourselves and feeling more deeply into others.

I see the universe as wondrous, full of great beauty. If you don't, pity you.

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 150 by marco]

Who says they are blissfully unaware subconsciously? Obviously, I sure don't agree with that.

[marco]

OK, what now? Who is going to bring a deity to account and how?

You are right. But in these discussions there is an invisible word - IF. I certainly argue on the basis that the God proposed in the OT is a reality. Your question challenges the IF premise.

In mathematics we work towards a proof by reaching a contradiction or an absurdity in our premise. I think the same idea applies here.

[marco]

[Replying to post 150 by marco]

Who says they are blissfully unaware subconsciously? Obviously, I sure don't agree with that.

I didn't use this format of words, which strikes me as tautological, hoghead. You said:

"There are plenty of people who will say they have had no experience of God.
I submit that subconsciously they have."
The first sentence means they don't know they have had an experience of God.
The second sentence suggests they have indeed had one, but at a subconscious level.

I believe the objection is that you yourself seem to be aware of God's subconscious working in your own person. If you meant no such thing, that's fine. Your words can be construed as if you did.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 146 by hoghead1]



[center]

Seek and ye shall find[/center]

Modern psychology well supports the notion that consciousness is just the tip of teh ice berg.

By "iceberg" I think you mean "human brain functions" or something like that. I think that modern psychology studies the output and structure of brains.

It might take a whole functioning human brain to be "human", and parts of it might not be "conscious" parts, but that doesn't mean these other parts are thinking or feeling or whatever the higher levels of the brain are doing.

Consider the fact that our conscious experience is not primary, but the mere end product of all sorts of unconscious, non-sensory events or experiences in the brain and nervous system.

If parts of the brain are non-sensory, what experiences or events are they SENSING?


Non-sensory Sensory

Also, there are many very simple organisms with little or no sensory seem to function quite well.

Not all functions are COGNITIVE functions.


Not cognitive cognitive

I don't doubt that they can experience.

If an organism has no sensory equipment, why assume that they are sensing an experience?


Non-sensory Sensory

I do not think, however, they are conscious entities. They feel, but they not feel their feelings, are not capable of self-referential statements, do not seem self-aware.

1. If an organism has no sensory equipment, it cannot "sense".
2. If an organism has no self-awareness equipment, it will not be able to be self-aware.
3. Humans have both sensory equipment and self-awareness.

I think it's very safe to say that things without self-awareness are not self-aware.
There are parts of the brain that are not "self aware", but research is still ongoing. Neuroscience is making leaps and bounds, of course.

But this sounds to me more like a logic puzzle than a neuroscience puzzle. What does it MEAN to be "consciously aware" of something?

To me, at the very least, it should imply logically MORE than not being aware of it. Once we become aware of something, it is no LONGER "unconscious" or "subconscious" or however you want to describe the UNCONSCIOUS part of our mental processes.

There are plenty of people who will say they have had no experience of God.

I would be one of those. I have no conscious awareness of "God" or of "Santa". What I had previously thought of as "experiences of " both God and Santa turned out to be illusions and the product of my over-active imagination. Or as I sometimes call these kinds of things now "cognitive biases".

But that requires a qualifier, namely, that they have had no conscious experience of God.

You can make the same argument about Santa. You aren't aware of being in conscious communication with him, either, I bet.

I submit that subconsciously they have.

Why aren't you talking to Santa anymore? I submit that subconsciously, you have.
He's trying to talk to you.

Perhaps you aren't digging in to your subconscious enough.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 149 by hoghead1]



[center]

Conscious Subconscious[/center]

NO, I did not say that.

What, precisely, did you not say?

I said God is directly and immediately experienced subconsciously.

How are you consciously aware of a subconscious event?

The fact you or I or anyone may consciously talk about God is not a direct, immediate experience of God.

What then, IS a direct, immediate experience of "God"?
Maybe I'm having one of those right now.

[marco]

I think anyone who tries to tune it better to himself or herself will easily recognize that our conscious awareness is haunted by a dim, penumbral realm of experience, that feeling you have of something always going on at the back of your head, something massive, something, right below the frontier where the precision of consciousness fails.

I'm not denying these finer feelings and dim murmurings.

The Bible is certainly not the only avenue of communication we have with God. However, such books can definitely help make conscious our unconscious avenues of experience. They also help us better identify with the experiences of our ancestors,

I find much of what is said in the OT repugnant or oracular meandering. On the other hand, when I read Horace:

Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume
labuntur anni, nec pietas moram
rugis et instanti senectae
adferet indomitaeque morti;

I am transported to his day and age. Alas, dear Postumus, the years are fleeing away from us and piety won't put a pause on our wrinkles, to our advancing age or to remorseless death.

Or when I read Ishiguro's Remains of the Day I appreciate the imagined sorrow in the butler's words of realisation: "My heart was breaking."

Or the kiss given in the Book Thief by the little girl narrator, to her dead friend.

Or Dido's death in book iv of the Aeneid....

Or poor Anna Karenina's despairing leap beneath the wheels of the train....

I have a fair idea of what is beautiful.

I do not have to look through the garments of God to detect beauty. It exists in world literature. And Wordsworth's description of his 19th century countryside is a conversation with the dead. God, I'm afraid, is an irrelevance, generous though it is of you to grant him credit for the setting sun.

I see the universe as wondrous, full of great beauty. If you don't, pity you.

Perhaps your limousine is bigger than mine but my blindness to divinities is not blindness to Nature and the universe. Even as a child of eight I was captivated when I was allowed to watch the midnight sky, pierced magnificently with sparkling miracles. I think I can safely return your pity, and assure you that I have a fine sense of what constitutes beauty. I don't need God's approval to observe it.

Nor do I think God is responsible for beauty or indeed for pain. We are, as its sole observers.

[dio9]

God is responsible for about 95% of what is done n his name. God's passion is completed in the sympathy of men. God and Man together do it.

OK, what now? Who is going to bring a deity to account and how?

Its not a question of bringing a deity to account. God is not "a deity" God is a reality , the way it should be. God is the categorical imperative to do the right thing. Which is for Man to respond to. It is a question of bringing Man to account. God is not the problem , Man is.

[bluethread]

OK, what now? Who is going to bring a deity to account and how?

You are right. But in these discussions there is an invisible word - IF. I certainly argue on the basis that the God proposed in the OT is a reality. Your question challenges the IF premise.

In mathematics we work towards a proof by reaching a contradiction or an absurdity in our premise. I think the same idea applies here.

That is not relevant on this forum, since the authority of the Scriptures is presumed. According the Scriptures, Adonai is responsible for everything that happens. Therefore, the question is how we should then live.